Price when reviewed

Around £250 inc VAT (£26 a month on 24-month contract)

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: build and design

The HTC Windows Phone 8S comes in an understated two-tone chassis with a rubberised polycarbonate finish. At 10.3mm thick it is far from the thinnest smartphone around, but we didn't feel it was particularly bulky. In part that is the smaller than average 4in display and tapered edges. The HTC Windows Phone 8S measures 63x120.5x10.3mm and weighs just 114g. From the front it is mostly screen, with a relatively thick bezel at the top, and the usual touch panel with three Windows Phone 8 icons at the bottom. See also: Group test: what's the best Windows phone?

The Nokia Lumia 820 is a bit smaller than the massive Nokia Lumia 920, but much bigger and heavier than the 8S. At 68x124mm it's about as tall as the iPhone 5 but a little bit wider than the 8S. Nokia claims it's a reasonable 9.9mm thick but we measured it as a not so slender 12.2mm and nor is it the lightest at 175g.

Still, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people may prefer a bigger Windows phone.

The HTC Windows Phone 8S benefits from a 4in Super LCD Gorilla Glass display. It's resolution of 480x800 pixels means 233 pixels per inch pixel density. It's perfectly usable and Windows Phone 8 looks as bright and cheery as ever. For the Lumia 820 Nokia has opted for a slightly larger screen size of 4.3in. The resolution is similar, but at 480 x 800 on a slightly bigger screen the pixel density is around a third lower at 217ppi.

They're very similar screens - one slightly bigger but with a marginally less sharp resolution.

Above the 8S's screen is a single speaker - a long thin strip - and an HTC logo. Below the screen, the bottom strip of the Windows Phone 8S is a different colour to the rest. In our case most of the phone's body is black, with a white section at the bottom, but we've also seen it in black and blue. It's a nice touch, making the Windows Phone 8S a little different from the norm.

Around the back of the HTC Windows Phone 8S is a smooth- and rubbery-feeling black panel. At the top is the camera lens and LED flash. Further down is a black HTC logo and a small Beats icon. And then you get to the white strip.

Push down and away from the rest of the phone, and this panel comes away to reveal a SIM tray and microSD card slot. This mechanism feels robust but, unlike a SIM tray, it does also leave you open to losing the cover. Replace the flip off cover and you can use the microUSB connector.

Around the sides of the HTC Windows Phone 8S is arrayed a camera button, volume rocker, and on/off switch. These are all hardware buttons with sufficient travel to make finding them easy enough, although for some reason the on/off switch at the top is almost snug to the top of the phone. Also on the top is a 3.5mm jack audio output.

Nokia has gone for a very rounded pebble-like design for the Lumia 820. The 820's matt finish and more shapely curves make it our favourite white phone ever. The Lumia 820 transports you back in time to Nokia's good old days with interchangeable rear covers, or 'shells', in various colours. Anyone who owned a Nokia 3210 or similar will know what we mean. The cover isn't the easiest thing to remove but snaps on easily.

Despite the removable cover, the 820's build quality is good. Once the shell is clipped into place the entire device feels solid and robust. It's not the kind of phone that makes you hold your breath if you drop it. The problem with the build quality is the weight of the phone. Nokia really should have spent more time making sure it was lighter.

The much lighter Windows Phone 8S has curved edges that give the impression of slimness. Factor in the solid plastic construction and that rubbery finish and you won't feel that you need a case, either. The screen does attract a lot of finger marks, however.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: price

Bought outright and SIM free, the HTC Windows Phone 8S will cost you around £200, the Lumia 820 about £300. Both are good deals for decent quality smartphones. When you look for a contract deal that gap narrows, however. A quick hunt on PC Advisor's own smartphone comparison site found 24-month contracts for both phones starting at around £15 a month. More realistically, shop around and you could expect to pay around £29 a month for unlimited calls and texts and 1GB of data. See: best deals on HTC Windows Phone 8S and best deals on Nokia Lumia 820.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: performance

The HTC Windows Phone 8S sports a 1GHz dual-core processor, and 512MB of RAM. It completed the SunSpider JavaScript web-browsing benchmark in an average time of 1408ms. This is a decidedly middle-of-the-pack result, placing the HTC well behind other Windows Phone 8 devices such as the Lumia 820. We didn't find that web browsing with the 8S was slow, however, just not noticably zippy.

General performance is similar: there's nothing wrong with the HTC Windows Phone 8S, it's just not super fast.

The Lumia 820 boasts a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. As you'd expect, it performs better than the 8S - in fact the 820 performs just as well as the more expensive 920. We found general performance to be smooth on the whole. In the SunSpider JavaScript test, the Lumia 820 was marginally slower than the speedy Lumia 920 with an average of 940ms, but that's still a lot faster than the 8S.

Overall, then, the Lumia 820 wins on performance.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: storage and battery

With the HTC Windows Phone 8S You get only 4GB of onboard storage with which to play. There is, however, support for microSD cards of up to 32GB, so all is not lost.

The Lumia 820 Lumia 820 doubles the internal storage at 8GB, of which around 2GB is taken up by the system. There's a microSD card slot which accepts cards up to 64GB.

The HTC's battery is a relatively tiny 6.3Wh (1,700mAh) cell. In our experience it just about gets through a day with moderate use.

By contrast we were pleased with the performance we got from the Lumia 820's 6.1Wh (1650mAh) battery. Over a period of 24+ hours (including overnight), we still had 40 percent of the battery remaining. A lot of users should get a couple of days' use out of the Lumia 820.

That's another victory for the 820.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: connectivity

Wireless connectivity options for the HTC Windows Phone 8S are 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth 3.1, 3G and GPS. You can expand the storage with a microSD, and there is a microUSB port for charging and synching with a PC. There's also the standard 3.5mm jack for headphones and speakers.

The Lumia 820 is packed with connectivity including Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n with channel bonding), Bluetooth 3.0, NFC and Qi wireless charging with the correct shell. It also supports 4G LTE mobile services in the UK. Physical ports are simply a microUSB and headphone jack.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: camera

The HTC Windows Phone 8S has only a single camera - a 5Mp snapper that sits on the back.

There is a dedicated camera button on the side of the phone, and you can add what HTC calls 'lenses' - special add-ons that plug in features and functions to your camera such as a barcode scanner.

There are no scene modes, but you can switch the flash on or off, change the exposure, adjust contrast, sharpness and white balance, fiddle with saturation and ISO. You can capture video at 720p and add effects to your efforts, such as black and white or sepia.

At 8Mp with a Carl Zeiss lens, the main camera on the Lumia 820 sounds impressive. There's a front facing camera, too, which most users will use predominantly for Skype calls. This provides a VGA quality (640x480) image. It's good enough for the task at hand but be prepared for the usual grainy picture of a front facing camera at this resolution.

Back to the main camera and there's an LED flash and we like the fact that here again there is a dedicated camera button to launch the camera app and take photos.

Overall we were disappointed with the images from the main camera, however. While exposure and colour balance were fairly good, we found that photos were nowhere near as sharp and detailed as the Lumia 920 and other 8Mp smartphone cameras.

Video footage can be recorded up to full HD 1080p, although 720p is default setting. We found video to be detailed and smooth at 1080p. The main issue we found was the auto white balance struggling to cope when filming indoors, although switching to one of the fixed settings helped.

The HTC Windows Phone 8S has a decent phone camera, but the Lumia 820 has both front- and rear-facing snappers, and could replace your compact camera.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: software

Okay, both the HTC Windows Phone 8S and Nokia Lumia 820 run Windows Phone 8, so there is litle competition here. But for WP8 newbies here is a brief introduction.

Windows Phone 8 looks similar to Windows Phone 7 but offers a few new features. The Start Screen, made up of live tiles, is more customisable than before with more sizes available. The larger you make a tile, the more information it can display. Other new features include Rooms which enables you to privately share content from within the People Hub and the great Kids Corner which puts the handset into a customised mode for children. No other mobile platform currently offers as good a child-safety feature - it makes your phone a toy, for the duration of your child's interest.

There's no getting around it: Windows Phone 8 is short of apps. Microsoft will say that a good percentage of the most popular apps are in the Windows Store, and that IE10 is a good enough browser to negate the need for many apps. And these things are true, but Windows Phone 8 is a new platform for everyone: even if all the apps you use regularly are already available, you may have to pay for them. Right now it's unlikely all your apps will be there.

Nokia makes the situation a little better by providing its own exclusive apps. Aside from Nokia Maps, which comes on every Windows Phone 8 handset, there are good quality apps like Nokia Music, Nokia Drive, Nokia City Lens and photography focused ones like Cinemagraph, Smart Shoot and Creative Studio.

On the plus side for both phones Windows Phone 8 is, like iOS, a curated app platform. Microsoft tests all the apps it allows in, so you shouldn't fall foul of any scams or malware.

People who like Windows Phone tend to love Windows Phone 8. It's a bit different from iOS or Android, but it looks great and - well - it's Windows 8 on your phone. It's impossible to say whether one platform is better than another. We suggest you try to use Windows Phone before you make a purchase.

HTC adds to the Windows Phone 8S a handful of its own apps including Converter, Flashlight and Photo Enhancer. Another one, simply called HTC, provides weather information, stocks and news. Like HTC's Android smartphones there is Beat Audio 'enhancement'. This annoyingly just cranks up the volume and adds more bass.

HTC Windows Phone 8S vs Nokia Lumia 820: verdict

The HTC Windows Phone 8S is the first Windows Phone 8 handset to fit into the mid-range price category. As such it's not quite the performer of the high-end Windows Phone 8 devices such as the bottom-of-the-high-end Lumia 820, but it's not so poor as to make it a bad deal. It offers solid performance and features for a reasonable price. Whether you prefer it to a similarly priced Android phone will depend on your own subjective preference of platform.

The Lumia 820 is a smaller and cheaper version of the 920. It doesn't pack the same punch as that high-end Windows Phone, especially in key areas such as the screen and camera. But we like the interchangeable covers and decent battery life. It's a better phone than the HTC Windows Phone 8S, but it costs more - to buy outright, at least. In Windows Phones, you get what you pay for.

OUR VERDICT

The HTC Windows Phone 8S is the first Windows Phone 8 handset to fit into the mid-range price category. As such it's not quite the performer of the high-end Windows Phone 8 devices such as the bottom-of-the-high-end Lumia 820, but it's not so poor as to make it a bad deal. It offers solid performance and features for a reasonable price. Whether you prefer it to a similarly priced Android phone will depend on your own subjective preference of platform. The Lumia 820 is a smaller and cheaper version of the 920. It doesn't pack the same punch as that high-end Windows Phone, especially in key areas such as the screen and camera. But we like the interchangeable covers and decent battery life. It's a better phone than the HTC Windows Phone 8S, but it costs more - to buy outright, at least. In Windows Phones, you get what you pay for.

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Comments

GerardMcEvoy said: Comments,GerardMcEvoy,It's a considerable workaround for an issue that should not exist.

Emma Goldsmith said: Comments,Emma Goldsmith,I've got the 8S and you can install apps etc. on your SD card if you use the manual download option. Not a problem.

GerardMcEvoy said: Comments,GerardMcEvoy,I would say it is definitely a problem but I digress. I voted with my wallet on this one despite wabting the 7s. Darn HTC

Matt Egan said: Comments,Matt Egan,I didn't, no. But I do appreciate that it's not ideal: "What may be a problem is that you get only 4GB of onboard storage with which to play. There is, however, support for microSD cards of up to 32GB, so all is not lost."
On Sun, 3 Mar 2013 17:48:56 +0000

GerardMcEvoy said: Comments,GerardMcEvoy,And you encountered no memory issues on the 8s during your time? 1.5gb just isn't enough for anybody who uses the device for longer than is required for a short term review.

Matt Egan said: Comments,Matt Egan,Spent a lot of time using both devices both before and after writing this piece. One of the problems for WP8 is that the spec is so locked down that comparing two devices really does sound like a spec comparison. The experience of using both devices is so similar.

GerardMcEvoy said: Comments,GerardMcEvoy,Pointless comparing the 8S with anything. Less than 1.5gb internal storage on boot. Yes there is SD support but that cant be used for apps, games, podcast downloads, offline maps or audio books (I'm an audible user) so the internal storage will be maxed out in days.
The fact that it ships with an app to free up memory says it all. I think its the best looking phone on sale today and I desperately wanted one but you would have to be as thick as two planks to buy the 8S over the 820 (or the 620 even).
This reads like a spec sheet comparison. Did you guys spend much time using the devices?

Imaginarynumber said: Comments,Imaginarynumber,Hi Matt
Those dedicated camera buttons that you like- I believe that they are stipulated by MS as part of the chassis design.
I must admit that I too like them and the fact that you can snap away even when the phone is in (pseudo) standby.
BTW You refer to the 8S battery size as relatively tiny [6.3Wh (1,700mAh)] and then list an even smaller battery for the Nokia [6.1Wh (1650mAh], is this a typo?
And "People who like Windows Phone tend to love Windows Phone 8. It's a bit different from iOS or Android, but it looks great and - well - it's Windows 8 on your phone."- Another typo?
Silly question but could you send picture messages on both handsets?
As a HTC WP7 Pro owner, the only useful HTC app that is not replicated elsewhere is the MMS settings app, unfortunately using it allows me to send/receive MMSes but the APN that they use is not supported by T-Mobile UK, it messes up my internet access. When I phone Tmob they insist that I revert back to their genric settings.... which wont work with MMS
In their rush to be like apple, MS removed your ability to edit the APNs sent by the network (in WP7 at least). You can retrospectively, manually add a new APN and edit it but you can't edit APNs sent by the network or by the HTC APN app.. To make matters worse you can only see the "current" APN settings in use by using 3rd party apps.
I can live without MMS :(
Tnx